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On 17 January 2023 Adobe released an updated Data Connection extension for Adobe Commerce (Magento). Two changes matter: PHP 8.2 support, and compatibility with custom Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK implementations.
PHP 8.2 support
Data Connection now supports PHP 8.2. Before this, moving to PHP 8.2 meant switching Data Connection off for the duration — a blocker that pushed plenty of upgrade plans back a quarter. The extension and the platform can now move on the same timeline.
Custom Web SDK implementations
Data Connection previously relied on the standard Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK. If you had modified yours, you picked one or the other. The update adds pluggable Web SDK providers, so a custom or modified SDK version can sit behind the same extension.
There are three ways in:
Drop-in replacement — swap the default SDK for a custom version through a configuration hook.
SDK wrapping — wrap the standard SDK with middleware to intercept and modify events.
Hybrid — keep the standard SDK for baseline tracking and layer custom logic on top.
Underneath it is a provider pattern: you define your own SDK initialisation logic. That opens up consent management before events are sent, event enrichment with custom context, filtering or throttling against business rules, and routing the same event to more than one destination.
The part that becomes yours
A custom SDK moves responsibility for data integrity, privacy compliance and schema consistency onto your team. Adobe published updated documentation on event validation and schema registration. Read it before you ship, rather than after the first month of malformed events.
What this means for you
Both changes are available now to all Adobe Commerce subscribers. If PHP 8.2 was on the roadmap and Data Connection was the thing holding it up, that blocker is gone — and if you have been running custom tracking alongside a standard SDK you no longer have to choose between them.